


The Maw

by runsinthefamily



Series: Purgatory [17]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Leviathan - Freeform, M/M, Purgatory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 21:18:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/891971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runsinthefamily/pseuds/runsinthefamily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>
  <img/></p><p>
  <a href="http://www.geography.hunter.cuny.edu/tbw/wc.notes/15.climates.veg/climate/Aral.Sea/aral_sea_water_transfer_disaster.htm">Photo is of the Aral Sea.</a>
</p>
    </blockquote>





	The Maw

**Author's Note:**

> [Photo is of the Aral Sea.](http://www.geography.hunter.cuny.edu/tbw/wc.notes/15.climates.veg/climate/Aral.Sea/aral_sea_water_transfer_disaster.htm)

Cas doesn't let Dean even look at the Leviathan portal. Dean has the vague impression of a swirling vortex of water and stone, a deafening howl that is cut to bearable levels by the clasp of Cas' wings. Cas cries out as they go through, a shriek of pain that freezes Dean's breath in his lungs, so close to the sound he'd made when the leviathan had mutilated him. 

The portal spits them out into cold grey light, and Cas snaps his wings out, clutching Dean with trembling arms, slowing their fall in time to make a tumbled, awkward landing into damp sand. Dean rolls out of Cas' embrace and fetches up against a rough stone, scraping the shit out of his knees and elbows.

"Ah, fuck," he wheezes, shoving himself upright. "Cas, you okay?"

Cas is wavering on hands and knees, heads hung low. His wings drape leadenly over the brown, rocky hillocks. _**I will be fine**_ , he says. The sand around him hisses and pops as his skin contacts it.

"Meaning, right now you aren't fine," says Dean, putting a hand to Cas's mile-wide shoulders. It's weird to feel so protective of a being five times his size, but there it is. It's Cas, no matter what shape he's in. 

Cas lifts his most-human head and fixes Dean with those bizarre blues. _ **It is not of import.**_

"You are so full of bullshit." Dean's hand trails down Cas' chest as Cas stands, coming to rest somewhere around the knee area. Christ he's a big bastard in this form. Finally someone to tower over Sammy, Dean thinks, and suffers a pang of homesickness so strong he nearly tears up.

"So," he says, throwing his shoulders back. "We gonna have to mix it up with Leviathan again? Gotta say," he looks around, "I don't think much of the welcome wagon."

The place is barren as fuck though more stable looking than anything since the first level of Purgatory. Craggy rock formations thrust out of brown sand toward a grim purple sky. There is the smell of iron and damp and that particular oily-garbage stink that Leviathan blood gives off. No foliage, no creatures, no damn movement, so far as he can see.

_**They are here,**_ says Cas. _**Though they are few.**_

"I guess I'd want to break out, too, if this is what the cage looked like," Dean mutters. 

_**This was a sea,**_ says Cas. _ **What you see is the empty bed where it lay.**_

"Where's the water?"

_**There was no water. The sea was Leviathan. They teamed in their countless, formless numbers, and ate everything that was not them. Until I came, and opened the door.** _

Dean blinks across the ragged landscape, imagining inky blackness. "Jesus," he mutters.

_**Dean.**_ Cas hefts the blade, scans the horizon. _**We need to go.**_

"Yeah, ok. Got any idea which way?"

_**I do. You won't like it.** _

"Oh. Good."

Cas begins to walk and Dean breaks into a trot to keep up.

"You gonna tell me where we're going?"

_**You remember what the seer told us, back in the forest? Three ways to exit, each with their own peril.** _

"Yeah, the ring of fire, the endless fall, the mouth of - wait. No. This was the endless fall, wasn't it? You said this way was the endless fall."

_**I may have been mistaken.** _

"If you think I'm going to saunter happily down Dick's gullet, you have another think coming, angelbrain." He grabs Cas' toga and hauls on it. "Wait up a second. Wait. Wait!"

Cas comes to a halt and looks down at him. 

"That other Levi almost killed you," says Dean. "And you want to take on the big daddy? I don't know if I can do the soul juice thing again, not for a while anyway, it - it kinda knocked me on my ass, if you didn't notice."

_**Your sacrifice saved our lives**_ , says Cas, _**but it didn't kill that Leviathan. It only drove it away. That tactic wouldn't work here, in any case.**_

"So you're saying that we have approximately zero weapons that will do any damn good." 

_**Fighting was never going to get us out of here, Dean.** _

"Well, I hope you have some brilliant plan, because fighting is all I do, Cas! It's all I - it's all I got for you." Dean spreads his arms. 

**_That is_ not true. **The sand doesn't just squeal and fuse at the pressure of Cas' angelic wrath, it wails. Blue fire runs in sheets over the hummocks. His wings flare open, feathers rattling like scimitars 

And then Cas staggers and falls to one knee, Grace welling slowly from the stump of his missing head. 

"Shit!" Dean rushes forward, catches the weight of Cas' descending hand on his shoulder. He grunts, braces, bears up beneath it, and reaches for Cas' cheek. "Hey," he says, "hey, take it easy. Easy." The smooth velvet skin feels cool to the touch. 

"Well, now." 

Dean's turned, his knife out, before he's fully registered the words. Cas' wings sweep out on either side of him, but it's a weak gesture, and he can hear the crystalline ping! of Cas' bleeding Grace contacting the sand. 

Dick Roman stands among the barren rocks of the bottom of Purgatory as if he were in a boardroom, his suit immaculate, his teeth as shark-white as ever. The nun's legbone is still jammed through his neck, though he hardly seems to notice it. 

"Castiel. Dean Winchester," says Dick, "I knew we'd get face time again." 

His grin is as wide as a chasm. 


End file.
